Photograph by: Ed Kaiser
, Ed Kaiser

VICTORIA — Amid speculation about the range of charges that could emerge from the RCMP investigation into the B.C. Liberal ethnic outreach strategy, the official story to date involves only possible violations of one piece of provincial legislation.

The announcement Thursday from the criminal justice branch confirmed that a special prosecutor had been appointed “to assist police with an ongoing investigation into alleged contraventions of the provincial Election Act.”

The complaint to police that led to the investigation was filed by Opposition leader Adrian Dix. His press release, confirming his role, also referred to “an ongoing investigation into alleged contraventions of the provincial Election Act.”

Neither statement provided specifics.

But whatever sections were allegedly contravened, the act also says this: “A prosecution for an offence under this act may not be commenced without the approval of the chief electoral officer.”

Though the chief electoral officer has broad powers to conduct investigations of violations under the act, Dix chose not to take his complaint directly to chief electoral officer Keith Archer at Elections B.C.

Instead, in early August, he went to the RCMP.

Mounties launched an investigation and at the end of the month, requested the assistance of an independent special prosecutor. Standard procedure in a politically sensitive case where, as the release from the criminal justice branch put it, “the investigation could include members of government and/or government employees.”

Though the chief electoral officer Archer was cut out of the process initially, the RCMP subsequently informed him that they were conducting an investigation into alleged contraventions of the Elections Act.

In the event that the investigation determines that charges are warranted, Archer’s approval would still be needed before charges could be laid. Which would pretty much reverse the process set out in the act:

“If the chief electoral officer is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds to believe that an individual or organization has contravened this Act, the chief electoral officer may refer the matter to the criminal justice branch of the ministry of justice for a determination of whether to approve prosecution.”

When I asked the New Democrats why Dix chose to take his case to the RCMP rather than Elections B.C., I was told only that he did so on the advice of legal counsel.

But in considering why he might have welcomed the advice to go that route, one has to note how the party was dissatisfied with the outcome of a complaint filed to Elections B.C. after the 2009 election.

The complaint — which did eventually end up in the hands of police and a special prosecutor — involved a stealth brochure put out by the Liberals to smear the NDP in Vancouver-Fraserview.

The case led to the political ruin of Kash Heed, the winning Liberal in Fraserview. He lost his seat at the cabinet table, was fined $11,000 for overspending and did not run again. His campaign manager was fined $15,000 and sentenced to one year probation and 200 hours of community service.

But the New Democrats were hoping for an order for Heed to vacate his seat for a byelection, which didn’t happened. Nor did the lingering whiff of scandal help the NDP in Fraserview this time around. NDP candidate Gabriel Yiu, who lost to Heed by about 800 votes in 2009, lost to Suzanne Anton by about 500 votes this time.

The only other clue from Dix about the material he took to the RCMP came during a brief media scrum Friday, when he referred to “very significant information that the government had previously kept hidden” and evidence of “serious misconduct, in my view, over time, that the Liberal party engaged in.

“I know the Liberal party believes that their 44-40 per cent win in the election ends all questions,” he added. “It doesn’t.”

Dix’s hand-picked campaign manager, Brian Topp, invited further speculation in his recent post-mortem on the election with disparaging references to the “arguably defamatory” attack ads aired by a business group.

“Christy Clark and the Liberals began an Internet, radio and television advertising program aimed at Adrian Dix, financed through perhaps $1 million in donations accumulated in an arguably illegal false-front organization.”

Though both Dix and the criminal justice branch have so far referred exclusively to alleged contraventions of the Elections Act, it is always possible that the trail of evidence could lead elsewhere.

During the recent legislature session, the New Democrats tried to implicate a former MLA and a former Liberal staffer in a job offer to a former contract worker to secure her silence against a threat to go public with damaging information about the premier. Bribery, they insinuated, which is a Criminal Code offence.

The trail could also run cold. I’m reminded that it is common practice for retiring MLAs and departing staffers to shred their files, which would have happened weeks before the police began sniffing around.

Speculation, as I say, runs rampant and will likely do so for some time. In the Heed affair, the initial complaint coincided with the election and the final disposition of charges was at the end of October 2011, two and a half years later.

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